The Donner Party 18461847

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The Donner Party1846-1847
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• On May 12, 1846, a large wagon train left
  Independence, Mo. bound for California.

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• The train consisted of several hundred people,
  including the Donner and Reed families.

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• The Reeds were wealthy farmers from Illinois who
  left everything behind.

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• The Donners were also wealthy, and supposedly
  brought a large cache of gold coins.

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• The journey was far from easy.

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Remains of wagons from the Donner party on the
Salt Desert.

• Many goods were abandoned, and the trail is
  marked with crude tombstones.

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Jim Bridger

• The train reached Fort Bridger in late July.

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• There, they heard about a shortcut.

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• Lansford Hastings wrote The Emigrants Guide to
  Oregon and California.

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• The Reeds and Donners were impressed with the
  idea of getting to California by a shorter route.

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• By chance, James Reed met an old friend, Jim
  Clyman who advised against it.

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The infamous Cutoff

• Reed and the Donners were not persuaded, and
  deiced to follow Hastings route.

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• When the party came out of the Wasatch, they were
  3 weeks behind, and faced the Great Salt Desert.

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Pioneer train
Pioneer train

• Hastings was wrong about almost everything, and
  the party nearly all died.

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• The party finally reached Truckee Meadows, and
  they decided to rest for several days. It was
  already late October.

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• Meanwhile, James Reed got into a fight with a
  teamster, and killed the man.

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• A Prairie court was convened, and Lewis Keseberg
  suggested Reed be hanged.

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• Instead, he was banished, and he went on ahead of
  his family and the others.

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• When the party pushed on, they were caught by a
  terrible snowstorm.

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• The party was trapped for what they hoped would
  be a brief period.

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• Eventually all the livestock was slaughtered, and
  much was lost in the deep snow.

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• Even their cabins and tents were completely
  buried in the ten-foot plus drifts.

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• One group decided to try to walk using crude
  snowshoes.

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• Caught in another storm, as people died, some
  began eating their flesh. Of 15, only seven
  survived.

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• Meanwhile James Reed, safe on the western slope,
  hurried to get help for his family and the others.

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The Donners Alder Creek camp site

• A total of four rescue parties went into the
  Sierras that winter. The third party left five
  survivors behind, including Jacob and Tamsen
  Donner and Lewis Keseberg.

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By the time the fourth rescue team arrived on
April 17, 1847, Keseberg was the only person
left. Many reports at the time said that the
rescuers had found Keseberg surrounded by
disfigured corpses, a kettle of cooking human
flesh, buckets of human blood, and a large frying
pan filled with fresh human livers and lungs. On
the ground were three uneaten ox legs. Keseberg
allegedly said his fellow pioneers had died
natural deaths and that he ignored the ox meat
because it was too tough and lacked a good
flavor. C. F. McGlashan.

• The final rescue party found only one man left
  alivea delirious Lewis Keseberg, amid a grisly
  scene of human remains.

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Truckee Lake from the pass.

• The leader, a man named Fallon, accused Keseberg
  of murdering Tamsen Donner, but lacked proof.

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Keseberg insisted until his death that he had not
murdered anyone and only reluctantly ate human
flesh. "It makes my blood curdle to think of it!"
he told Charles McGlashan, a local newspaper
publisher who wrote a book about the Donner
Party. "It has been told that I boasted of my
shame -- said that I enjoyed this horrid food
It is a horrible, revolting falsehood C. F.
McGlashan

• Keseberg sued Fallon for defamation.

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• One of the Donner daughters, Eliza, agreed to
  meet with Keseberg, and he assured her that he
  did not murder her mother.

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• Keseberg later opened a boarding house and
  brewery. He bragged to patrons about how much
  lard he rendered from Mrs. Donners body.

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